# How to Cancel Brevo, Downgrade, Pause, or Close the Account > Cancel, downgrade, pause or close a Brevo account: the steps, yearly Professional plans, refunds, prepaid credits, the dedicated IP, exporting data and the free account inactivity rule. _Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/how-to-cancel-brevo β€” The Professional's Toolkit Β· updated 2026-10-09_ --- Cancelling Brevo is done in the account and takes a few minutes. Downgrading is the same action, because Brevo has no separate downgrade button. Closing the account is a different, permanent step. This guide covers all three, plus pausing, refunds and what happens to your data. ## Cancel, downgrade, pause or close **Cancel** a paid plan: the account moves to the free plan at the end of the current billing period [10]. **Downgrade**: "To downgrade a paid subscription, you first need to cancel it." [9] Then you stay on Free or buy a lower plan. **Pause** a monthly plan for one, two or three months [11]. **Close** the account: "This action is irreversible, and all data will be permanently lost." [12] Most people who want to pay less want to remove emails from their plan or pause. Most people leaving Brevo want to cancel, export, and close only later. > πŸ’‘ **undefined:** Use prepaid credits before downgrading; they are lost. ## How to cancel From the vendor's steps [10]: 1. Click the account dropdown and select My plan. 2. If the subscription is paused, resume it first; a paused subscription cannot be cancelled. 3. At the bottom of the page, click Cancel subscription. 4. Brevo offers a pause instead. To continue, choose to cancel. 5. Select a reason, and give details if asked. 6. Confirm. The cancellation is scheduled. The account moves to the free plan at the end of the billing period, and you keep using the paid features until then. Only the account owner, or users with permission to manage plan, billing and payments, can cancel. ## Yearly Professional plans One plan is different. "To cancel a yearly Professional plan, contact our support team by creating a ticket from your account." [10] The terms add a notice period for Professional: "the notice of non-renewal must be given in writing, and the minimum notice period of non-renewal is fifteen (15) calendar days" [14]. So if you are on a yearly Professional plan, open the ticket well before the renewal date, keep a copy, and do not wait for the last two weeks. > πŸ’‘ **undefined:** Cancel a few days before renewal. ## What cancelling does not cancel Cancelling the subscription does not cancel everything. The help centre warns that it "does not cancel your dedicated IP", which must be cancelled through support [10]. Prepaid email credits, which you buy separately and which never expire, are affected by a downgrade: "If you downgrade and still have prepaid credits, you will lose these credits." [9] Use them before the plan ends. Check the add-ons on your plan as well, such as extra seats, logo removal or sales seats, so you know what will stop and when. ## Refunds The terms are clear: subscriptions are "non-cancellable by You prior to the end of your ongoing Subscription, and We will not provide refunds for any prepaid or unused fees." [14] So cancelling a monthly plan on day three gives you the rest of that month, not a refund. Cancelling a yearly plan in month two gives you the rest of the year on the paid plan, not a refund of ten months. If Brevo closes an account for a breach of its policies, the terms state it "will not provide refunds for any prepaid Subscription fees or unused quotas" [14]. The practical rule: cancel a few days before renewal, and pay monthly until you are sure. > ⚠ **undefined:** Cancelling does not cancel a dedicated IP. ## Downgrading to a lower paid plan To move to a cheaper paid plan, cancel the current one and buy the new plan when the old one ends [9]. Two conditions apply. Your contacts must fit the new tier. "If you have more contacts than the limit allowed for a given tier, you won’t be able to select that lower tier." [7] Delete contacts first if needed. Your prepaid credits will be lost [9]. If you only need fewer emails on the same plan, you do not need to cancel at all. Remove email credits from the plan in My plan; "When removing emails from your plan, the change will apply on your next billing date." [7] ## Pausing instead For a short break, a pause keeps your plan without charges. "You can pause your monthly subscription for up to 3 months." [11] Conditions: "Pausing a subscription is only available if you are on our current pricing, and subscribed to a Starter, Standard, or Professional monthly plan." [11] Yearly plans cannot pause. The pause starts at the end of the current billing period. While paused, you cannot cancel, switch to yearly or add users until you resume. A pause suits a seasonal business or a newsletter taking a break. It does not suit someone leaving for good. ## After cancelling: life on the free plan When the paid plan ends, the account becomes a free account [10]. That means 300 emails a day, up to 100,000 contacts stored, one user, automation for up to 2,000 contacts and the Brevo branding on every email [6]. Most importantly, the inactivity rule applies. The help centre warns that you will "have to log into Brevo every four months to prevent the automatic deletion of your Free account" [10]. If you keep the account only as an archive, set a reminder, or export everything and close it. ## How to close the account permanently Closing deletes everything. The vendor's steps [12]: 1. Export what you need first: contacts, campaigns, automations, transactional logs, conversations, deals, calls and payments. 2. Make sure scheduled campaigns have been sent, and remove Brevo forms, chat and payment links from your website. 3. Disconnect API connections. 4. Go to Settings, then General, and click Definitively close your account. 5. Review the impact list, type DELETE and confirm. Only the account owner can do this. Enterprise customers ask their Customer Success Manager. The vendor keeps "aggregated data for three months after account closure" for statistics and legal purposes [12]. ## Exporting before you go Export while you still have the paid plan, because some features and data may be less accessible on Free. At a minimum, export contacts with their attributes and lists, and a separate file of unsubscribed and blocklisted addresses, which you must keep honouring on any new platform. Export campaign content you may reuse, and document your automations in writing, because they do not transfer. If you use Brevo's CRM, export deals, companies and notes. If you sent transactional email, update your application's SMTP or API settings to the new provider before the plan ends. ## A worked example: leaving on the right day A business on Standard at 20,000 emails pays $69 a month, renewing on the 10th. It decides on the 20th to move. If it cancels on the 20th, it keeps Standard until the 10th of next month and is not charged again. It has twenty days to set up the new platform, export, and switch transactional settings. If it forgets until the 11th, the renewal has gone through and the terms provide no refund [14]. It pays $69 for a month it will barely use. On a yearly Standard plan the same mistake commits a full year. Set a reminder two weeks before any renewal. ## Cancel or remove emails? A worked example A shop on Standard sends 50,000 emails a month for $97 [3]. After a quiet season it expects to send 20,000. **Option A: remove emails.** In My plan, reduce the email credits to the 20,000 tier. The plan stays Standard and the price becomes $69 from the next billing date [7]. Its 8,000 contacts fit the tier, whose cap is 500,000. Nothing is lost. **Option B: cancel and buy a lower plan.** The shop cancels, waits for the period to end, and buys Starter at 20,000 emails for $32. It saves $37 more a month but loses automation for unlimited contacts, the free logo removal and extra seats, and any prepaid credits it still holds [9]. **Option C: pause.** If the quiet season is three months or less and the plan is monthly, the shop can pause and pay nothing for up to three months [11]. Most businesses want A or C. Cancelling is for leaving. ## Moving transactional email without downtime If your website or app sends receipts, password resets or notifications through Brevo, cancelling without moving them first breaks those emails when the plan ends, or squeezes them into the free plan's 300 a day [6]. 1. Set up the new provider and verify your sending domain there. 2. Switch your application's SMTP credentials or API key to the new provider. 3. Send test messages for each transactional type. 4. Watch delivery for a few days while Brevo is still active. 5. Only then cancel the Brevo plan. Keep your domain's authentication records in order during the switch, and remove Brevo's records once nothing sends through it. ## Cancelling as an agency or for a client If you manage Brevo for a client, check who owns the account before cancelling. Only the owner, or users with plan and billing permission, can cancel [10], and only the owner can close the account [12]. Agree in writing which data the client wants exported, who keeps the export, and whether the account should be closed or kept as a free archive. If it is kept, someone must log in regularly to prevent deletion [10]. Remove your own user from the account when the work ends, so the client's account has no unused logins. ## If you might come back Cancelling rather than closing keeps the door open. Your contacts, templates and history stay in the free account, and you can subscribe again from My plan at any time. Two things will have changed when you return: you will pay the then-current prices, which the vendor may revise with at least thirty days' notice [14], and any prepaid credits you had are gone. Keep the account alive with a login every few months, or the free account can be deleted [10]. ## What happens to forms and automations When the paid plan ends, the account falls back to free-plan limits [6]. Signup forms keep working, but automations can accept at most 2,000 contacts, sending drops to 300 a day, and every email carries the Brevo branding. If you are leaving, remove Brevo forms, chat widgets and payment links from your website before the plan ends, as the vendor's closing checklist recommends [12], so visitors do not sign up to a list nobody is reading. ## FAQ **How do I cancel my Brevo subscription?** In My plan, click Cancel subscription and confirm. The account moves to the free plan at the end of the billing period. Yearly Professional plans are cancelled through a support ticket. **Does Brevo give refunds?** No refunds for prepaid or unused fees under its terms. Subscriptions run to the end of their term. **How do I delete my Brevo account?** Settings, General, Definitively close your account, type DELETE. This is irreversible; export your data first. ## The sequence that avoids surprises 1. Decide: remove emails, pause, cancel or close. 2. Use any prepaid credits before a downgrade. 3. Export contacts, unsubscribes, campaigns, automations and CRM data. 4. Move transactional email settings to the new provider. 5. Cancel a few days before renewal; for yearly Professional, open a support ticket at least fifteen days ahead. 6. Cancel any dedicated IP separately. 7. Close the account only when you are sure, or keep it alive with a login every few months. Cancelling Brevo is straightforward. The things that go wrong are timing, prepaid credits and the inactivity rule, and all three are under your control. ## Sources [1] Brevo vendor pricing page β€” https://www.brevo.com/pricing/ (2026-10) [2] Brevo machine-readable pricing reference β€” https://www.brevo.com/pricing.md (2026-10) [3] Brevo public pricing API β€” https://pricing-backend.brevo.com/public/pricing/api/plans/all?currency=USD (2026-10) [4] Brevo help: about pricing plans β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208589409-About-Brevo-s-pricing-plans (2026-10) [5] Brevo help: limits of the Free plan β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208580669-FAQs-What-are-the-limits-of-the-Free-plan (2026-10) [6] Brevo help: add or remove emails β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/8292912279954-Add-or-remove-emails-from-your-plan (2026-10) [7] Brevo help: upgrade to a higher plan β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/209296725-Upgrade-to-a-higher-plan (2026-10) [8] Brevo help: downgrade β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/17629099685394-Downgrade-to-the-Free-plan-or-a-lower-plan (2026-10) [9] Brevo help: cancel your subscription β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208593449-Can-I-downgrade-to-a-free-plan-or-cancel-my-subscription (2026-10) [10] Brevo help: pause your subscription β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/8817303571602-Can-I-pause-my-subscription (2026-10) [11] Brevo help: permanently close your account β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/208677629-Permanently-close-your-Brevo-account (2026-10) [12] Brevo help: account and campaign suspensions β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017299259 (2026-10) [13] Brevo Terms of Use β€” https://www.brevo.com/legal/termsofuse/ (2026-10) [14] Trustpilot aggregate and review corpus for Brevo β€” https://www.trustpilot.com/review/brevo.com?languages=all (2026-10) [15] WordPress.org listing for the Brevo plugin β€” https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailin/ (2026-10) [16] Brevo's Shopify App Store listing β€” https://apps.shopify.com/sendinblue (2026-10) [17] Brevo public status page β€” https://status.brevo.com/ (2026-10) [18] Brevo community forum thread β€” https://community.brevo.com/t/free-plan-5-000-contacts-payed-plan-500-contacts/3423 (2026-10) [19] Brevo full feature comparison β€” https://www.brevo.com/pricing/see-all-features/ (2026-10) [20] Brevo help: plan add-ons β€” https://help.brevo.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409354969746-Customize-your-plan-with-add-ons (2026-10) [21] Brevo vendor comparison page against Mailchimp β€” https://www.brevo.com/mailchimp/ (2026-10) [22] Brevo transactional email product page β€” https://www.brevo.com/products/transactional-email/ (2026-10) [23] Mailchimp vendor pricing page β€” https://mailchimp.com/pricing/ (2026-09) [24] Trustpilot aggregate score for Mailchimp β€” https://www.trustpilot.com/review/mailchimp.com (2026-09) [25] MailerLite vendor pricing page β€” https://www.mailerlite.com/pricing (2026-10) [26] MailerLite vendor documentation on billing β€” https://www.mailerlite.com/help/plan-and-billing (2026-10)